Microbiological Safety

Course schedule: 17, 18 and 19 June, every day from 09.00-13.00 h

Note: this course is payed by the GSMS, however registrations goes through LMS. Therefore you need to enter your earned ECTs in Hora Finita yourself. 

This basic course teaches the students how to work safely with microorganisms and materials which can contain microorganisms and why you should do this. The course will lead to a certificate needed to be allowed to work in an ML-I laboratory (VMT certificate). The course includes a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part consists of lectures and an e-learning.

During the course, but better just before the course an e-learning module will have to be followed. The module gives the student the basic knowledge for working with microorganisms.

The lectures will build upon the e-learning and discuss examples from daily work and the application of law and regulations in institutions such as the UMCG. The theoretical part will be assessed by an online multiple choice exam.

The e-learning and the exam will be accessible and registered via the UMCG Learn Management System, so that when you meet these requirements they will be directly valid as part of the LMS certificate needed for ML-laboratories.     

The practical contains the following work: Techniques to safely deal with microorganisms. Working aseptically. Inoculating and purifying by sub culturing of bacteria cultures or samples. Determining the degree of contamination of air. Survival of a model microorganism on clothing. The formation of aerosols. Autoclave validation with a biological indicator. Testing effectiveness of hand washing and hand disinfection. Disinfection of surfaces. How to deal with spills. Determination of bacteria in a mixture. Analysis of normal human microbiota present in students.

The course unit assumes the student has basic lab skills (i.e. using a pipet, using disposables, preparing experiments, reading SOPs, recording results).

When passing this course the student is able to,

• Reproduce the rules for working according to VMT (Safe Microbiological Techniques) and show that he/she can observe these VMT rules while working in the laboratory.
• State how microorganisms spread.
• Identify certain actions in the lab that entail biological risks and clarify how these risks can be mitigated.
• Describe how microorganisms can be killed or removed and identify the potential pitfalls of disinfection and sterilization.
• Apply aseptical and purifying techniques.

Lectures and E-learning
Practical work

Multiple choice exam
Assessment of practical work (includes formative assessment)

Enrollment for this course is done via LMS for all UMCG PhD students via this link: Enrollment for the Practical Event: Safe Microbiological Techniques (SMT) (3 half days) (capp12.nl)

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When you press “Start course” you will get directly access to the e-learning and exam (theoretical part of this course). Level ML-I will be sufficient to pass this course. To be able to join the practical part and the lectures you have to enroll for the event “Practical Event: Safe Microbiological Techniques (SMT) (3 half days)”. When pressing “Start or Continue” you will see the first available course date. When full, unavailable or you are not able to join, you can choose to be notified by email as soon as new dates are published. Dependent on availability of laboratory space the course will be held in November, January (or February) and June.

For non-UMCG PhD students please email the course coordinator (b.l.waarts@umcg.nl)